


a strange and half-remembered touch

by Lefaym



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationship, content note: references to canonical torture/abuse, content note: trauma recovery, surrogate mother/daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 10:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5740231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/pseuds/Lefaym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey has nightmares; Leia can help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a strange and half-remembered touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beerbad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beerbad/gifts).



> Many thanks to Lionessvalenti for an excellent and very short-notice beta.
> 
> Written in response to this prompt on the TFA Kink Meme: [Gen, Rey & Leia, hurt/comfort, nightmares, maternal Leia](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/1841.html?thread=1842225#cmt1842225)

For the third time this night, Leia wakes to a nightmare not her own. This one is worse than the first two. Leia can feel her throat constrict, and she gasps as though she can’t get enough air. The images in her mind -- in her mind, but not from her mind -- cut through her like a hot beam of light.

She had held back before; she knows from experience that some people prefer not have witnesses in such moments. But she can’t ignore it this time. Not when -- not now.

Leia swings herself out of her bed and ties a simple robe around her waist. She allows herself one small detour -- to the kitchens where she fills a canteen with water -- before she makes her way to the tiny room assigned to the girl.

* * *

Rey tenses when she hears the knock at her door, but something tells her not to ignore it. She wipes furiously at her eyes, and curses herself at the tremor in her voice when she says, “Come in.”

The door slides open to reveal the General, who had insisted that Rey call her Leia just hours ago. Rey is all at once relieved and horrified to see her.

“I thought you could use some company,” says the General -- Leia.

“No, I -- I’m fine,” Rey forces herself to say, but the lie is obvious. “I’m fine,” she tries again, but this time the words are followed by a sob that she can’t quite hold back.

Leia steps into the room, and seats herself on the side of Rey’s bed. “Here,” she says, handing Rey a canteen. “Have something to drink. It’ll help.” When Rey hesitates, Leia adds, “Trust me.”

Rey takes a small sip from the canteen, and the cool water trickling down her throat does help. It pulls her a little further away from the dream, and makes it that little bit easier to breathe.

“On Jakku,” she says, her voice not quite steady, “I could never waste water portions on a bad dream.”

Leia smiles a small, wistful smile. “When Luke first joined the Rebellion, he could hardly believe how wasteful we were with the stuff.”

Even after everything, Rey can hardly believe that the Luke she’s talking about is _Luke Skywalker_. 

“Was he -- did Luke come from -- ”

“Tatooine,” Leia supplied. “He was a moisture farmer. Well, his Aunt and Uncle were.”

“They never mention that in the stories.”

“The truth has a way of getting left behind in these things.”

A thousand questions spring into Rey’s mind, about this mysterious figure who is somehow at the centre of everything that has happened, but every one of them is erased when she is struck by a horrifying thought.

“My dream -- the nightmare. Did it wake everyone here?” Why else would Leia have come…

Leia shook her head. “Just me. You and I are the only ones in this building who can sense each other like this. Through the Force.”

That sense had allowed them to recognise each other when they’d met for the first time. Now it’s telling Rey that she can trust this woman, that this woman will take care of her in a strange and half-remembered way, and that just makes it all so much worse.

“I’m sorry,” Rey says. She’d tried to stop the dreams, but she couldn’t. Her old trick, summoning the island in the sea, has been taken from her now; his face was there when she tried it, and now... “I’m so sorry. That must have been terrible for you.”

“Not as terrible as it was for you,” says Leia.

“But he’s… he was your…”

“My son,” Leia finishes, and although her voice is steady, Rey can feel the older woman’s heart break all over again.

“I’m sorry,” Rey repeats. “I didn’t mean for you to see…” Suddenly there is an arm warm around her shoulders, and Rey finds herself pulled in close.

“It’s not your fault,” Leia whispers. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

A hand comes up to stroke her hair; suddenly the tears are back, and Rey can’t stop herself from crying any longer. 

“It hurt,” Rey manages between sobs. It had hurt far more in the dream than in the reality, at least as she remembers it. In the dream she hadn’t been able to resist as he tore her mind apart, she’d been helpless as he took what he wanted, and she couldn’t find the power within herself, she couldn’t turn it back on him; it hadn’t been there, and she was nothing. “He hurt me.”

“I know,” says Leia, and in Rey understands all at once that this is no empty platitude. An image flashes through her mind, gone so quickly that it’s hardly there at all, of another man with an even more terrible mask, and Leia, no older than Rey is now, screaming because she refused to tell… “I know he did.”

Rey lets herself cry, because it still hurts so much, because even now the dream is still there, tearing its way through her mind. She cries for her other dreams too, the one where Finn didn’t wake up even though she begged him, and the one where she waited and waited in an empty room but no one came to find her (but someone has come, now). And she cries for Leia, because no one should have to lose so much; because Rey knows somehow, deep in her gut, that Leia almost never cries for herself.

When she is done, when there are no more tears left in her, Rey rests her head against Leia’s shoulder and takes deep, shuddering breaths that grow more steady as Leia continues to run her hand through Rey’s hair.

“I don’t know about you,” says Leia at last, “but I don’t particularly feel like being alone tonight.”

Rey shakes her head, and hopes that Leia understands that it means _No, I don’t want to be alone either._

“My room is more comfortable,” Leia says. “They do insist on giving me more space than I need. I can help with the nightmares, if you’ll let me.”

“That -- that would be good,” Rey manages, her throat still raw. 

Leia pulls her closer, just for a moment, then helps her to stand and gather her few belongings. 

“Come on, then,” says Leia, gently taking her hand.

* * *

Leia sighs as she feels Rey drift into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. It’s easy to see why Han took to her so quickly. And she knows, as certainly as she has ever known anything, that Luke will love her too, even if she isn’t… (but she _is_ , Leia’s feelings tell her, even though it must be impossible).

Leia keeps her hand pressed softly against Rey’s head as she continues to draw on the calm, bright place, deep inside her, the way Luke taught her all those years ago. She remembers doing the same for Ben, when he was very small, tucked between her and Han. He hadn’t let her, later...

In the morning, Leia thinks, she will have someone move Rey’s cot to this room. It’ll be easy enough to find a pretext; more volunteers, shocked into action by the Hosnian attack, are coming to the Resistance every day, and they need the extra space. And Rey will be gone soon enough, as soon as she and Chewie make the necessary repairs to the Falcon, but in the meantime…

Leia can teach her, just a little. Not so well as Luke will, but enough to keep the nightmares at bay. For a very short time (too short, too short), Leia can help her feel safe.


End file.
